Sugar Land councilman plantiff in U.S. District Court lawsuit against Texas Open Meetings Act

DIANE TEZENO

Published 7:00 pm, Monday, March 22, 2010

Sugar Land Councilman Russell Jones is one of 20 original plaintiffs named in a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court challenging the Texas Open Meetings Act.

The cities of Alpine, Big Lake, Pflugerville, Rockport and Wichita Falls are among the plaintiffs listed in the original suit.

According to plaintiffs, the Texas Open Meeting Act, as currently written, “prevents elected officials from doing what they are elected to do - speak in public or private on issues facing the public.”

“We bring this action to unshackle Texas elected officials so they can perform their duties as representatives of the citizens who elected them to speak,” read an excerpt from the suit.

Jones described his decision to join the suit as “a question of fundamental rights under the U.S. Constitution” and said the Act restricts free speech for elected officials.

“If I think that there is too much traffic at the intersection of Highway 6 and US 59 - a major problem in Sugar Land - I can discuss it with my next-door neighbor.

“However, I cannot discuss it with my mayor and at-large council members at the same time. I cannot even send an e-mail to each of them to suggest that we put the item on the agenda for discussion. Such an act would subject me to criminal penalties,” Jones said.

The Sugar Land councilman said he agrees with holding open meetings and maintaining transparency in city government and can live with the law as it is written, but disagrees with the criminal penalties proscribed by the law.

“Many states have similar acts which do not have the criminal penalties, and they appear to be working well,” Jones said.

Jones noted that there have been few prosecutions under the act and believes it is because “elected officials are under oath to comply with the law and are working hard for their communities.”

Since filing of the suit, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has filed a motion to dismiss on the grounds that the cities involved in the lawsuit “lack standing because they have no First Amendment rights to vindicate and cannot invoke the First Amendment rights of their citizens.”

Abbott also noted in his reply to plaintiffs that a city or county cannot challenge a state statute on federal constitutional grounds.

Jones supports the cities involvement in the suit, but said he has no plans to encourage the city of Sugar Land to join the suit.

“The cities have an interest in maintaining the suit, since in the prior suit the only reason that the attorney general won was that the plaintiff council member had been term limited out of office and the court decided that the case was ‘moot,’” Jones said.

In his motion to dismiss cities, Abbott described the suit as “meritless.”

According to the attorney general, “every court in the nation to have addressed a First Amendment challenge to an open meeting law has rejected the challenge - and upheld the law.”

Abbott noted that Texas cities have not rallied to the plantiffs’ side.

According to the Texas Attorney General, Beaumont recently adopted a resolution rejecting the suit in support of the Texas Open Meetings Act, and El Paso declined an invitation to join the suit by unanimous vote.

Also Big Lake, one of the initial cities involved in the suit, has since voted to withdraw its claim, according to Abbott.

“The reason is simple: The First Amendment protects citizens against government, not the other way around - and open meeting laws further, rather than frustrate First Amendment values,” Abbott said in his reply.